<VV> Where are the PA-mini reports?

[Tony Underwood]

At 06:46 hours 09/13/2005, Bill Hubbell wrote:
>I would have thought by now somebody would have posted a summary 
>report about the PA mini.  Didn't anybody on VV attend it?
>
>Bill Hubbell
>(still stuck at home)


You missed a pretty good show, lots to do and plenty to keep everyone busy.

Tech session about carbs was most informative, Robert Paris showed 
those in attendance a few tricks with the Rochester H that I 
certainly will be implementing.   Vendors were plentiful, lots of 
parts and some of them relatively cheap when one considers the 
growing scarcity of such.

We didn't participate in any moving events such as the rally or 
econorun... I was too busy yapping with friends and hanging out with 
vendors shopping or just jawing.   Plenty of good looking cars on 
hand, noted some exceptional examples like the yellow late ragtop, 
the 500 inch Caddie powered front engine'd Monza with Ford 9" rear 
narrowed to within an inch of its life, sporting 18" wide rear tires, 
looked like a '70s vintage funnycar, and I won't be forgetting the 
royal blue Lakewood with a few custom tricks in its favor such as the 
'56 Chevy "bullet" tail light lenses which really lend themselves 
well to a wagons lines.   Nice FCs were in attendance too, as well as 
a fair number of "real" daily driver Vairs which showed up, 
demonstrating that you can drive interstate-wise to a show in your 
Vair without worry.   The Nantucket Blue '67 500 daily driver coupe 
ran perfectly all the way from Roanoke to the host motel without 
missing as much as a single beat, likewise the trip back home Sunday 
evening, proud of the little car even if it did show up with 
southwest Virginia mud spatters on the lower fenders.   It's starting 
to accumulate some miles these days, after having been acquired as a 
relatively low-mileage vehicle some years ago.

We saw the typical folks we usually only see at shows, along with a 
few new faces who are now acquaintances that we'll be looking for 
next time.   Bought parts, ate snacks in the hospitality room, ran 
around poking noses into everything, had a good time across the board.

And Smitty had to fix something on his Vair *again*, this time 
bringing the Spyder ragtop instead of the wagon...  leaky wheel 
cylinder on the Spyder, easier fix than the differential in the wagon 
I bet.    He's gonna collect a string of Hardluck Awards for the 
mantle.    Didn't seem to keep him from enjoying himself.   We all 
had a good time.

The people who put this show together know how to  run a Corvair 
meet, kudos to them and those who helped make it a success.


*****************************


Something peculiar happened on the way back to Roanoke.    We stayed 
fairly late Sunday, left out after a rather substantial system of 
steaks and baked potatoes and pecan pie etc.   About 20-30 miles 
outside Carlisle on I-81 we caught up with a bright shiny white Ford 
F-250 pickup sporting Powerstroke badges on it, towing an equally 
shiny white car hauler, one of the enclosed variants with the "ships 
bow" wedge up front for lowering wind resistance, usually containing 
a race car or a show car etc.   This one evidently was loaded judging 
from the riding stance etc and we discussed whether it may have been 
leaving out from the Vair show, possibly with a show car inside, 
pickup and trailer both sporting Tennessee tags.   For the next 
hundred or so miles we swapped places on the Interstate, passing the 
truck-trailer, then it would pass us etc. by which time it was 
dark.   We stopped for about 5 minutes at a rest stop, figured the 
trailer and pickup would be miles ahead, but after about 20 minutes 
we spotted them again, evidently they'd stopped somewhere as well for 
a similar period of time.    Once again we "convoyed" with the white 
pickup and white trailer, passing and being passed depending on the 
hills... until another rest stop came available and we headed in to 
refill the water cups...  thirsty after all the food we'd indulged 
previously etc.     We slurped water for a few minutes and talked 
about the show, checked the oil in the '67 coupe, stretched some legs 
and then hit the road again, commenting that our Ford pickup and car 
hauler "traveling companion" for the last 175 miles were this time 
far away down the Interstate towards Tennessee...

About ten minutes later we saw a couple of emergency vehicles, 
ambulance and fire truck speeding north, and commented that we'd not 
seen any sort of accident back behind us for the last ten or so 
miles, then back behind us in the distance we saw the emergency 
vehicles doing a U-turn at one of those "authorized vehicles only" 
gravel paths in the median and began heading south, coming up behind 
us on the horizon.    The next comment was that there's a wreck up 
ahead of us, likely over the rise coming up and sure enough up ahead 
was a scattering of lights and vehicles on the side of the road and a 
state police car already there, blue lights flashing and flares in 
the passing lane.   As we got closer and slowed into the right lane I 
saw a couple of cars at odd angles in the middle median with several 
people on foot, and then a length of wadded up guard rail beside the 
left lane ending in a heap of red pickup truck and... a shiny bright 
white car hauler with the red pickup embedded into its left side, 
both at right-angles to the fast lane effectively blocking it.   At 
first we wondered/commented about the white car hauler... "But the 
one we followed had a big white F-250 pulling it and the pickup truck 
all tangled and wadded up with this one was red."

About 300 feet farther down the highway as we passed a couple more 
cars sitting off the road and noting a variety of skid marks and 
pieces of debris on the pavement, there on the far right side in the 
grass by a ditch was a white Ford F-250 pickup with another vehicle 
directly behind it at an angle.

There appeared to be a number of vehicles which had evidently had a 
little convention of their own at this particular spot...   we drove 
on, not entirely sure if this car hauler and F-250 pickup were the 
same two vehicles we'd rode with for the last 175 miles going south; 
I wasn't able to spot any license plates to see if either the white 
pickup or the car hauler were sporting Tennessee plates... the car 
hauler rear gate/ramp was rather blocked by a section of red pickup 
covering much of the rear of the car hauler and the white F-250 
pickup down off the road by the ditch on the right had another car at 
an angle behind it blocking the back of the truck, couldn't see those 
plates either.

I was just glad that we had pulled into the last rest stop or we may 
have been in the middle of whatever happened there.

Hopefully this wasn't someone who had attended the Minicon show in 
PA...  and had a showcar Vair in that car hauler.    Then again, 
whoever it was, they had *something* in that car hauler that likely 
didn't fare very well during the incident, particularly seeing as how 
the car hauler was at that time about 300 feet away from the pickup 
that had been pulling it... IF indeed the white Ford 250 down by the 
ditch was the same pickup that had been towing the car trailer we had 
run with since just past Carlisle.

...anyone in here know anything about this accident...?   And does 
anyone know anybody who attended the show, possibly pulling a bright 
white enclosed car hauler with an equally bright white Ford F-250 
Powerstroke pickup?

******************************************

We ran on, headed south towards Roanoke which was about 80 or so 
miles farther down the road if memory serves...  and eventually had 
to stop about 15 miles outside of the city for fuel, tank showing 
E.    This was a bit of a puzzle since we'd driven up to PA on a 
single fill-up and still had some fuel left when we pulled into the 
host motel, not much but it was above empty.   However, the trip back 
used up the whole tank, same relative speed on the road, no detours, 
no heavy right foot.

This happened the same way with the Carlisle National Convention... 
up there on a tank with fuel left, but the trip back home required a 
stop outside of town for fuel.     PA gas got something in it like a 
blended anti-smog component that hurts mileage or something?

The trip did not continue uneventful... a few miles from home we were 
stopped by a county police officer because the tag light wasn't 
working.   After checking, the wire leading to the plug connector 
that feeds the tag light was found to have broken off the 
connector... so  we assured the officer (a woman, who introduced 
herself as "Officer Trudy" and I'm not making this up) that the tag 
light would be taken care of promptly upon arriving home, whereupon 
she bid us a good evening.

I still haven't taken inventory of the stuff I bought, shall do that 
later this week, sort and stash the goodies etc.

Looking forward to the next area show which will be the NC Fall 
Affair in Raleigh next month.



tony..